Every brand knows they need a digital marketing strategy, but it doesn’t necessarily mean everyone gets it right every time. With new trends coming and going, different social media platforms and tools appearing, it’s hard to not try and tap into every single market and know what is right for your strategy and what is best to avoid. Integrate these points into your digital marketing strategy and avoid some of the biggest marketing mistakes your brand may encounter.

1. Not having a clear strategy and goal

First and foremost is having a plan.

To effectively and efficiently roll out your marketing strategy you have to set realistic goals and have a clear strategy that everyone involved is aware of in order to achieve those goals.

It’s easy to get side-tracked and go off on a tangent, so having a clear strategy and goals is crucial to ensure you stay on track. For example, if you are running a content marketing campaign, planning out content using a content marketing calendar is a great way to stay organised. You want to ensure that your plan is relevant to your company and figure out exactly how it will help achieve your end goal to ensure you’re not producing content just for the sake of making content. This will also help make sure you don’t miss anything along the

way as you can routinely check things off as you go along (plus who doesn’t love being able to check tasks off a list!).


2. Failure to define your target audience

Not knowing your audience and their pain points will lead to a lot of wasted budget and effort on advertising to the wrong people.

Social media analytics such as Instagram and Facebook give you insights on the demographic you most appeal to. So utilising this information allows you to hone down on the content you produce and who you target – and it’s free!

Try and create buyer personas of your ideal customer and work from there. Buyer personas allow you to map out the pain points you can address, how they will interact with your brand through their customer journey and other factors that come into their purchasing process such as their interests.

3. Not optimising for mobile

With Google rolling out mobile-first indexing by default in July 2019, it is more important than ever to make sure your website is responsive on mobiles and nailing your SEO. What this means is that search engines will be prioritising mobile versions of websites when indexing and ranking your pages. Keep it mobile friendly and design your websites with mobiles in mind.

Furthermore, 69% of people are accessing their media through smartphones, therefore making sure your content is readable and works on mobile should be a priority. If brands don’t account for mobile, they may risk alienating a large portion of the population, which consequently leads to a potential loss of reach and brand exposure in certain segments.

You can even test on Google to see how your content will appear on different platforms. Check out how we do it for our own website!

Testing it this way will give you a rough idea on the usability on different platforms, but testing it manually on your team’s devices if you can is also helpful to double check.

4. Not engaging with your customers

78% of marketers believe the marketing industry is headed for more custom-driven customer experience. Customers want to feel like they matter and when it comes to customer complaints, they want to know that real people are tending to their matters.

An example of a social media blunder is American Airlines when they responded to tweet that was criticising their brand with an automated message thanking them for their support. Automation isn’t a bad thing and can definitely be useful, but there is time and place, and this was definitely not the place for automated messages. It made the brand look like it doesn’t care about the people behind the dollar signs. It didn’t tarnish the brand, but it was enough to give it a bad reputation as it went viral in no time.

Mistakes like this can be avoided if customers are made to be at the forefront of your strategy, attending to their wants and needs and listening to what they’re saying about your brand.

5. Carelessly following social media trends

Just because social media is blowing up, doesn’t mean you have to be on every single one. For example, even though most internet users can be found on Instagram, it doesn’t mean that that is the best social media platform for your brand to be on. Pick the social network that your target audience is active on and be present on it. Kickstart your social media marketing by commenting and engaging with your customers where they are most active, don’t try to spread yourself too thin by wanting to be on every single available platform.

Top social media places to be for your industry:

  • B2B businesses: Prioritise Linkedin. Linkedin has surpassed Facebook for B2B marketing, this is your hub and where other businesses like yours will be most active.
  • B2C businesses: Be active on Instagram! Fashion, beauty and e-commerce, this platform will be your saving grace. People buying from you want to visually see your product, so take advantage of this and create high-impact images.
  • B2C for enhanced customer experience: Start engaging with your customers on Twitter, from retweeting posts that brand advocates have mentioned you in and fast responses to any criticisms towards your brand.


6. Neglecting analytics and data

Tracking how your marketing campaign is going throughout its entirety is more beneficial than evaluating it at the very end. Regularly checking the data allows you to make continual adjustments throughout the campaign to improve results. Be proactive, not reactive.

It’s one thing to have all this data, but it’s another thing to use it properly. Use this data to make your decisions, it can be used for small things such as the best times to post on social media, to the percentage of your target demographic that are actually engaging with your content.

7. Forgetting about existing customers

Generating new leads and gaining new customers is exciting, but these efforts shouldn’t surpass your existing customers. Prospective customers might buy your products, but recurring customers are where most of your business lies.

Focusing most of your time on recurring customers will also save you time and money when it comes to advertising. These customers already know who you are and what to do, they already have a need for your services, whereas with new customers don’t have that top of mind awareness just yet. Satisfying existing customer makes way for them to become your brand advocates which is the ideal customer for a business. 90% of consumers tend to be more trusting of recommendations when it comes from friends or people in their social circle.

Brand advocates help your digital marketing strategy without you having to spend money on advertising. Having active brand advocates allows you to use user-generated content that you can feature on your social platforms and also provides a more credible marketing message.

Coming up with the best digital marketing strategy for your business can be timely. But once you see your results, that time and effort in making sure every detail is covered, from the big picture goals and data analysis, to creating individual buyer personas, will save your brand from making avoidable mistakes. If you need help with your digital marketing strategy, contact our team for a free initial consult. Why wait, start conquering your online presence today.